Soy Made Me Gay

I stumbled across an article today online that featured my high school.  It was written several years ago while I was on my mission.  The article was shocking for many reasons (the first being that it featured the tiny school at all).  Mostly, I was surprised by what the article revealed about myself.

I went to a small all-white private school in the rural south.  It was founded in the late sixties when the public school system integrated.  I always knew that the school (and several others scattered about the area) was founded because white parents didn’t want their kids going to school with the black kids who were in the majority.  Part of me always thought that, while the school may have been started based on racist fears: that was a long time ago.  There were several at the school, of course, which still went there because of racist motivations, but most everyone went there to get a higher quality of education than the public school provided.  If a black family wanted to send there kids to my school, they were welcome to, but they just didn’t want to.  Like the churches in the area, the two groups fundamentally didn’t want to mix, so they didn’t.

Most of the racist rhetoric from my youth I’ve since rejected, but one thing I always thought until today was that if a black family did come to our school, they would have been enrolled – their money was just as good as anyone else’s, after all.   It didn’t happen because, like the white parents, the black parents didn’t feel comfortable with their kids being the minority in school.

The article interviewed a man who had served on the board of our school.  I knew him.  At the time of the article, the school had been closed down for about a year due to lack of enrollment.  The man sadly talked about the broken windows and vandalism that had befallen the school since it closed its doors.  I saw a picture of a room that I had passed every day that I went to school there, from kindergarten to the 12th grade.  Once a break room, I had helped to turn it into a computer lab using (of course) outdated equipment.  The interviewer asked the man about race at the school and pointed out that if the school had encourage black families to enroll their kids, then the school might still be open.  The man admitted that it was probably true, but there were several on the board that were dead set against it.  I don’t know if any black families tried to enroll their kids at my school, but I realized that if there had been, they would likely have been turned away.  I was genuinely shocked.

I was naïve.  I always assumed that if it came down to it, people would have done the right thing and allowed black kids to enroll.  It was a shock to realize that people would have rather seen the school closed due to lack of numbers than open its doors to black families.

I often say that I hated high school and well, I mostly did.  Growing up gay in the rural south can really, really suck.  Crap, growing up in the rural south can really suck.  I acknowledge that there were a lot of people at my school that were really good people.  But a lot of those really good people were upholding a racist society because they were afraid to change.  Including me.  I didn’t clamor to be sent to a public school.  To this day I’ve never had a close friend who was black or even talked at length with a black person that wasn’t a coworker or college professor (In America.  Strangely enough I served my mission in a country with a large black population without any hesitation whatsoever).  This is coming from someone who has lived in the south (where white people are generally in the minority) his whole life.  Lack of familiarity has caused me to not be completely comfortable around black people.  I am, in effect, a racist.

But I want to change.

There was a time that I was very uncomfortable around gay people.  If a guy was effeminate, it was even worse.  But I don’t anymore.  The change happened when I became friends with several actively gay men.  I realized that, just like any other group of people, you have gay guys that are shady, untrustworthy, and cruel, but you also have gay guys that are genuine, honest, and extremely kind.  Now, simply being gay, itself, is no longer a factor for me in choosing people to be around.   I want it to be the same for me with black people.

By admitting that I am a racist, I don’t want anyone to think that I look negatively on black people or wish anyone harm, nor do I go out of my way to avoid black people.  I took African American literature courses in college and watched black-directed films in an effort to understand African-American culture.  I know that black people are the same as other people – I simply don’t have enough personal experience to make me 100% comfortable.  In order for that to happen, I have to leave my comfort zone and make an effort to get to know black people on a personal level.

I have a strong knee-jerk reaction against a lot of the anti-gay rhetoric out there.  A lot of it I find offensive because, well, I am gay and I my personal experience screams to the contrary of much of it.  But a lot of the propaganda I have heard before while growing up.  But instead of “gay person” being the subject, I heard “black person”.  For example, I heard in my youth that black people weakened society because they had weak families and were inherently promiscuous.

Hmm…that one sounds familiar.

There were parts about high school that I loved.  A couple of years ago, I was visiting my parents and drove past the site where my school stood.  It had been torn down and I felt a pang of nostalgia for the friends and experiences I had there.  (It’s not like we were marching around with torches and white robes.)  But even as I type this and even as I feel that same nostalgia, I am glad that the school no longer exists.  It was fundamentally a holdout in a racist system that really needs to be abolished.  True, the students that went there just migrated to the neighboring all-white private schools in the area.  No change really happened and the rural south will continue to die culturally unless we realize that we are strengthened by our differences, not weakened by them.  I can’t change other people, but I can change me.

I want to be kind to everyone,
For that is right, you see.
So I say to myself,
“Remember this:
Kindness begins with me.”

“Kindness Begins With Me” Children’s Songbook, 145.

They come every summer to our singles ward and swell the membership rolls by around fifty or so.  “Bug Boys”, they are usually called, although they usually refer to themselves as “Summer Sales” guys.  This army of young men (and a few women) flood neighborhoods during the humid months of June, July, and August selling pest control, alarm systems, satellite dishes, and whatever else their Western-based company is hawking.  Some are making money for their missions, some are trying to pay for college, and some are looking to expand their dating pool.  Occasionally, a few of these guys successfully integrate into the ward and there are several “it” members of the local social scene who originally arrived as bug boys.  Most often they stick to themselves, their shore-leave style attitudes putting off most of the locals who are ingrained with southern gentlemen and woman sensibilities.

When the Elder’s Quorum instructor posed the question, “How can we see a shift in values in the world today?” it was one of the bug boys from Utah that raised his hand.

“Homosexuality,” he responded.

“How so?” the teacher pressed for clarification.

“The world says it’s okay to like dudes,” the bug boy succinctly said.  The teacher remained in a stoic silence and the bug boy continued talking. My friend shot a glance over to me.  I rolled my eyes and sighed deeply.  I found myself being frustrated at the words being spoken, which were laced with a tone of disgust and anger.  I wanted to raise my hand, out myself, and tell this young guy that he didn’t know what the crap he was talking about.  I wanted to see the look on his face when he realized that one of those homosexuals that he hated so much was sitting in the same room with him at church.  But I didn’t.  The problem was, there was a lot of truth mixed in with his comments.  Extraction of the doctrine from the bigotry would require time and a calm surgeon and at that moment, neither existed.  The instructor deftly steered the conversation in another direction.  I looked over to my other friend, who was also gay.  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders in a “what are ya gonna do?” sort of way.

The rest of Church passed pleasantly and the week moved on.  While passing a lull at work, I navigated on over to CNN.com and found a story about the persecution of homosexuals in Iraq.  Being gay in Iraq can be a death sentence which death is carried out only after days of torture and rape.  A shaved chest can be all the proof that some militias need to murder those suspected of being gay.  I recalled the Iranian prime minister when speaking at Columbia University callously (or ignorantly) remarking, “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals.”  I felt a familiar anger rise.  Did that bug boy think the same thing?  “In the Church, we don’t have homosexuals.”  I envisioned him in a group of Boy Scouts in Utah when he was younger, humiliating the queer-acting kid.

And then I stopped.

I realized that I was as guilty as the bug boy.  Actually, I was more guilty because I really knew the outcome of such anger and its source.  I was taking my anger at the Iraqi murders and associating it with a young man that was not guilty of such atrocities just like he was taking his own personal discomfort (and perhaps experience) and using it to cloud his judgment of all homosexuals.  We were both wrong – but I more so.  Because I knew better.

I am not a patient person.  In my desire to change the world and create safe places where everyone can grow spiritually, I sometimes let my personal frustrations get in the way and I have to fight the desire to call people out on their own personal hypocrisies.  But how can one fight ignorance and intolerance without creating a hypocrite of himself?  The God Loveth His Children pamphlet provides some insight when it advises, “Some people with same-gender attraction have felt rejected because members of the Church did not always show love. No member of the Church should ever be intolerant. As you show love and kindness to others, you give them an opportunity to change their attitudes and follow Christ more fully.”

It was obvious when I thought about it.  We can never change someone else.  We can change ourselves, the example of which can prompt other people to reevaluate their own lives.  If we try and force people to change through anger or public scorn, then we become just as hypocritical as they can be (if not more so).  That is what we gay members of the Church have to do.  We have to be the bigger person.  We have follow the example of Christ as closely as we can, focusing on serving others and truly growing spiritually in spite of the attitudes around us.  Basically, we have to turn the other cheek.  If people still think that we are evil, they will be judged according to their beliefs and it is out of our hands.  After all, Jesus taught:

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;  That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”  (Matthew 5:44-45)

I have a feeling that I will fail miserably sometimes.  I am not only impatient, but proud.  In the end, it will likely be my pride the Lord requires me to sacrifice.  But, hopefully, by trying to be the type of person God would have us be, we can all manage to help this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints live up to its divinely-inspired name.